With Embraer closing the production line of the Legacy 650 Series 4 years ago, the private jet charter market is going to miss this famed aircraft but not just yet. With potentially decades of service life left in the newer models, we ask which direction clients may move towards when the Legacy 650 Series slowly loses its hard-fought market share in the Heavy Jet market.
To give some background, the Legacy 600 started life in 2000 (originally referred to as the Legacy 2000) with an ambitious target to take market share away from the popular Dassault Falcon, Gulfstream, and Bombardier Challengers models.
Refined from the Embraer ERJ-135 regional jet, the Legacy was designed with a classic three zone cabin with an enclosed rear stateroom, similar to the Gulfstream 450 or Falcon 900 Heavy Executive Jets available. Being however a conversion from an existing regional jet and not a clean private jet design, the Legacy had a slightly shorter cabin, and despite the additional fuel tanks had a shorter range, losing out initially on transatlantic charter business until improvements on the later Legacy 650 versions.
So despite the initial specifications of the Legacy 600 being a smaller, shorter range Heavy Jet, skeptics and indeed those familiar already to the traditional Heavy Jet options may have said that the aircraft would not be a popular charter choice or to their liking, yet, one factor not discussed was its significantly reduced, true operational cost being several million dollars cheaper to buy from the outset. This made the Legacy 600 Series not only substantially more economical than its direct Heavy Jet competitors, but also competitive with smaller Super Midsized Aircraft such as the Falcon 2000 and even the Challenger 350.
And going by the adage ‘money talks’ many private jet charter operators could see the potential of this aircraft.
When it came to the issue of its limited range versus the competition, it was common that many charter flights (namely around Europe, from London to Nice, Faro, Balearics for example) are much shorter than the maximum range of the Legacy anyway, so this potential issue on range became a muted point.
With its growing popularity, a very generous luggage hold, and private rear stateroom, the Legacy 600 was a great aircraft to ascend charter clients on a larger aircraft, and indeed create a larger pool of charter clientele. In fact, we can personally recall upgrading charter clients from Super Light Private Jets, such as the Citation XLS, to the Heavy Jet without incurring substantial expense, and this is why we believe this aircraft became so successful for charter operators in Europe.
In short, the Legacy 650 has earned its place in the Heavy Jet market, with the aim of not trying to be bigger or further reaching but to be an economical choice for larger groups, a stand-up, roomy cabin for those wanting extra space for shorter trips, and we feel it worked considering some of the most commonly used aircraft being chartered from Farnborough and Biggin Hill.
Alas, returning to the first point with the Legacy 650 aircraft out of production, and being replaced by the smaller Praetor 600, the question remains who, what, and how can they replace this aircraft and the dominant market share it will be giving up – certainly we think there is scope for a new economical short range private jet. The Challenger 850 you may say? Sorry, that’s out of production too.
Speaking to manufacturers this seems to not be the direction they want to be heading, instead quite the opposite with the launch of the Global 8000 and Gulfstream G800, outdoing each other in designing further reaching aircraft seemingly at the behest of pilots and owners requests. This is strange because current data shows that most private flights are rarely above 8+ hours so why invest all this time and investment?
When you consider the point that manufacturers are concentrating on their aim of just building bigger and further, you may feel that we have come back full circle again to a time when Embraer saw an opportunity for the Legacy to fill a market for shorter sectors.
Perhaps the reason is that there may be little return on designing smaller aircraft, but we would argue that something more economical may appeal to more owners and charter companies. Even with endless means at your disposal, would you take your Ferrari out of the garage around the corner just to pick up a loaf of bread, most probably not and it’s the analogy we would use to say why the Legacy worked so well for charter in Europe.
So whilst we salute the fantastic Legacy 650 Series, we look with anticipation to what will be next, something which remains to be seen.
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